Rogers: What We Really Learned from ABC News and Marianne Gingrich

Anyone who made the decision last night, as I did, to watch Nightline’s appallingly tawdry interview with the second Mrs. Newt Gingrich learned nothing new about the target, whose marital infidelities are well known, but did, however, witness two of the most dangerous pathologies of the mainstream media (MSM) on vivid display.

ABC and its MSM colleagues claim to purvey news and opinion that are both serious and impartial. This interview was neither, indeed was the opposite of serious and impartial.

Last night’s performance couldn’t have provided a more vivid illustration of the double standards applied to the coverage of Republicans and Democrats. It was a classic case of an abject lack of the fairness and objectivity they claim to epitomize — even as they attack Fox News as unfair and unbalanced.

Let’s start with seriousness. Is ABC News serious that last night’s Nightline was serious?